DC Repubs. wanted NC House Speaker Thom Tillis to quickly win the party’s Senate nom. and focus entirely on vulnerable Dem. incumbent Kay Hagan. But fundraisers he held late last year with Karl Rove turned off activists in the limited-gov't movement.

While the national Republican establishment apparently assumes that the ObamaCare train wreck will simply hand votes to establishment Republican candidates, on the ground things are different. Conservatives have figured out that “it’s the primaries stupid” and there’s a real fight going on to make sure principled limited government constitutional conservatives come out on top.